Joey Madia is an actor, screenwriter, playwright, Escape Room designer, podcaster, novelist, and director.
He has appeared in, directed, and written well over 100 plays and a dozen projects on camera, including the 2014 remake of White Zombie and his first film as writer/director received an Honorable Mention at the 2016 Indie Gathering International Film Festival (Cleveland, OH). His screenplay The Man at the Foot of the Bed (based on a true story by Josette Saginario) has been a two-time Official Selection and a Beverly Hills Film Festival invitee.
He has written half a dozen main stage musicals and dramas, with a specialty in Historical Education Theatre and participatory plays for youth. He has written and performed pieces about Civil War Captain Louis Emilio as a Chautauqua Scholar for Voices from the Earth, and since 2016 he has portrayed six different Golden Age pirates and a Royal Navy lieutenant in The Cannon and the Quill, commissioned by Port City Tour Co. (featured on “Passage of Dreams,” a Japanese television show sponsored by Tokyo Disney and in North Carolina Travel). The stories are also told in three novels (2019-2021), with a fourth being published in October 2022. He has performed as Samuel Bellamy for Athens Chautauqua, Hadley Library and will be performing him for the Ed Kinney Lecture Series in August 2022 and Ashland Chautauqua in July 2023. He toured Oklahoma in June 2019 as Che Guevara for the state’s annual Chautauqua program and returned in June 2022 as Allen Ginsberg.
He is the co-writer, with 2-time Grammy nominee David Young, of the rock opera Be the Change. His stage musical, Three Gothic Doctors and Their Sons, will be produced in Los Angeles for live theatre as well as livestreaming and film in 2023. His new musical about the cryptid Mothman for American Lore Theatre will be workshopped in September of 2022.
His 17 plays for young audiences have been produced across the US and he has two plays in the Dramatic Publishing catalog. He is founding Artistic Director of Seven Stories Theatre Company, Inc. (which celebrated its 16th anniversary in August 2020; sevenstoriestheatre.org). He was Resident Playwright at Youth Stages, LLC for 12 years. He is the author of four books on using theatre in the classroom (The Stage Learning Series, Accompany Publishing, 2007) and is working on a fifth, Every Day is a Story All its Own, about the necessity of telling our personal stories, and telling them well.
His first novel, Jester-Knight, was published in February 2009 (New Mystics Enterprises). He is writing the sequel. His second novel, Minor Confessions of an Angel Falling Upward was published in September 2012 (Burning Bulb Publishing). He is a book and music reviewer and the founding editor of , a literary site he created in 2002 that now houses the work of over 100 writers and artists from around the world.
His poetry, essays, and short stories have been widely published and have earned him several awards. He and his wife Tonya were the lead investigators for the Haunted Webb Memorial tour for two years, also for Port City, resulting in a book, Watch Out for the Hallway: Our Two-Year Investigation of the Most Haunted Library in North Carolina (published by Visionary Living in Sept. 2018). Their follow-up, Roommates from Beyond: How to Live in a Haunted Home was published in Oct. 2020. They are cohosts of the weekly livestream Into the Outer Realms (95 episodes and counting).
Unique traits: I write and direct in several different media and genres.
Desk Clerk
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Film
Actor
We're Gonna Make(Y)our Film
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Film (short)
by Vasbinder Entertainment/New Mystics Enterprises (Short)
David-Darren Finch Two newbie scriptwriters sell their script to Hollywood… and slowly watch it change. Award-winner at the Cleveland International Film Festival, 2016.
White Zombie
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Film
by Arthur Leo Collins (Horror)
Actor Beautiful socialite Madeline White travels to the Old World to be reunited with her fiancée, Neil Bellamy, with plans to marry. However, on her voyage to the island, she meets wealthy plantation owner Gilles Beaumonde who secretly falls in love with her. Upon her arrival, Neil and Madeline seal their plans to marry unaware that Beaumonde already has his own intentions for Madeline. Beaumonde enlists the help of evil voodoo master Severin Devereaux who commands a crew of zombies with nefarious plans of his own. Although this remake adheres to many elements of the 1932 classic, it also differs greatly in its fantasy steam punk approach. This "White Zombie" includes new characters that flesh out the idea of voodoo as a key element of zombie-lore. In addition to characters carried over from the original are Baron Samedi (the "loa" or guardian of cemeteries,) guede (death spirits,) voodoo witches (reminiscent of those in Shakespeare's "Macbeth") and powerful voodoo priestess Mambo Brigitte... Written by Susan Sheppard
West Virginia Hospital Safe Lift
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Industrial
by Allegheny Image Factory
Patient
Poe: A Haunted Life (one-man show)
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Theater
by Seven Stories Theatre Company
Poe, and 6 of his characters
The Vig
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Film (short)
by Dir. Phil Rush, Ex. Prod. Robert Tinnell
George
1863
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Film (short)
by Allegheny Image Factory (Short)
James O. Watson A web series about the town of Fairmont, WV and its role in the US Civil War. Produced by Allegheny Image Factory. Written and directed by Robert Tinnell.
Love Letters
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Theater
by New Mystics Theatre Company
Andrew Ladd
The Dining Room
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Theater
by Seven Stories Theatre Company
9 different Roles
Arcadia University
(1986-1990)